Su Mu squeezed out these words, unwilling to look directly into Tang Nai’s eyes, which seemed capable of seeing right through her.
“Ugh, that really is a fateful entanglement…”
It was too embarrassing.
How was she supposed to accept something like this?
Did she really have no privacy in front of her?
Tang Nai glanced over unobtrusively, then looked back at Su Mu.
“Don’t be nervous. I don’t have a habit of peeping.”
She leaned back slightly.
“You still have Senior Ya around you, and I don’t want to cause any trouble. Besides, I have to stay inside the barrier most of the time, so I can only swap out the people around you every once in a while. They’re all real, living people, so you don’t need to worry.”
“You’re doing all this just to dump a massive amount of summer homework on me, aren’t you! You jerk…”
Su Mu puffed out her cheeks in dissatisfaction, looking like a pufferfish.
“Because I care about you, I want to tease you from time to time.”
“That kind of ‘caring’ just gives people headaches!”
Tang Nai neither confirmed nor denied it and simply smiled faintly.
“That’s not important. It’s just a shame I didn’t get to see you transform into a magical girl. Some witch’s authority fragment just happened to land on you and turned you into a strange saint. That was beyond my expectations. Still, I was happy to observe a bit more… and that’s when I discovered something interesting.”
“Interesting? What do you mean…”
Su Mu’s face turned red, her voice trembling slightly, “Wh-what?”
If it was something like role-reversal, getting called out on it face-to-face was still pretty embarrassing.
“It’s those little essays you wrote. Hehe, they’re pretty interesting, you know. It was obvious at a glance that something was up. You’re really close with them, huh? Looks like you’ve spent the night together~”
“N-no, it’s not like that.” Su Mu stammered out the lie, turning her eyes away.
At least back then, things with Ye Wanqing weren’t like that yet.
“Is that the kind of thing you can say while lying without changing your expression?” Tang Nai teased, her fingers lightly tracing Su Mu’s exposed collarbone, which was as pale and smooth as fine porcelain outside her pajamas.
Her slender fingers gently toyed with it.
“You can’t even speak properly, Little Su Mu. I thought you and Ye Wanqing…”
“I’m not as thick-skinned as you! How can you just casually talk about something like that!”
Su Mu’s pretty face tensed up.
Before she could finish speaking, Tang Nai had already mimicked her tone and recited the words Su Mu had said to Ye Wanqing in the dream world a few days ago.
“I’m just greedy and fickle~”
Su Mu hurriedly covered Tang Nai’s cherry-like lips with her hand, nervously glancing toward Su Ya’s direction.
Fortunately, her mom was already completely zoned out and didn’t want to suddenly interrupt their intimate whispers.
She had been half-disconnected the whole time, but every little movement on Su Mu’s side was clearly still under Su Ya’s watchful eye.
“Stop teasing me. So you realized I came back from the future ever since then??”
Tang Nai narrowed her eyes slightly.
“Probably. And I also noticed how conflicted you were… like a magical girl who had been turned into a strange person. That’s why I made an exception and stepped into your life to help you deal with the trouble from the Combat Division.”
Hearing this, Su Mu suddenly understood.
Irina probably hadn’t gotten any help from Tang Nai back then, which was why things had spiraled out of control afterward.
“You don’t know this, but seeing you in pain actually made me pretty conflicted too. Should I step in and help you or not? Once I did, you and I would get entangled too early, and that would only be bad for you. In a sense, the reason you’ve ended up in my hands now is because of that very thing.”
“Isn’t that because you got involved so early…” Su Mu said softly, her voice gradually trailing off.
In truth, she also knew that without Tang Nai’s help, not only Ye Wanqing but even herself and Su Ya would have fallen into enormous trouble.
She could only vent a couple of complaints, but in every sense she was being suppressed so hard she couldn’t lift her head.
‘I’m especially troubled, yet you look overly cute, so at your fifteen years old for some reason I feel like I’m being kept… Even though I wanted to muster up the courage…’
“Anyway, you only need to know one thing. Because of my two little sisters… I used to treat you as my dear little Miti. But now… it’s hard to say~”
There was a deeper meaning in Tang Nai’s words.
Su Mu understood, but she still found it a bit hard to digest.
Even if they were just friends, staying together for a long time under unequal conditions could easily change the relationship, let alone in this even more intimate situation.
“Ever since the Demon King died, for a very long time, being alive had no flavor for me. Sometimes when lying in bed, I would desperately hope that the gray ceiling would collapse and crush me to death. But rather than dying that way, I would rather die from excessive indulgence.”
Su Mu tugged at the corner of her mouth, forcing out a difficult smile.
“As expected of you. You can even joke about something like this.”
“But your appearance, especially these days spent with you, makes me feel especially relaxed. Want to know why?”
Tang Nai smiled, and this time the curve of her lips seemed a little higher than usual, as if she was almost about to laugh out loud.
“What if I don’t want to know?” Su Mu joked along.
However, what she got was Tang Nai’s affirmative reply.
“It’s exactly like that. When I’m with you, sometimes I seem to forget the past and can just be a girl chatting with a companion, not a hero, a patient, or a leader.”
Tang Nai snapped her fingers and finally stood up from Su Mu.
Her usually calm and indifferent face actually showed faint signs of softening.
Every word she said seemed to remind her of those things from the past.
“When Little Mo talks to me, she always makes the atmosphere too heavy. Little Lando especially hates me, and I deserve it. Little Miti is too reserved in front of me, probably because I saved her, but I actually don’t like the identity of a lifesaver…”
Tang Nai gazed intently at Su Mu, her gray pupils reflecting specks of starlight.
“But you’re different. You always have a sharp tongue but a soft heart. The way you scold people looks like you’re acting spoiled. My dear Little Su Mu, do you know you’re just like those tsundere little sisters in anime who say they dislike their big sister but secretly keep thinking about her?”
“You!” Su Mu stared at Tang Nai, momentarily at a loss for how to retort.
In the end, she could only attack the other’s weak point.
“Someone with a loli figure like you should stop calling herself big sister!”
Tang Nai chuckled lightly.
She had always been dismissive of comments attacking her figure.
After all, she wasn’t narcissistic.
What was the point of having big breasts on her own body?
In the end, it was just benefiting others.
As she spoke, Tang Nai turned back to look at Su Ya, her tone instantly becoming sincere, “Auntie, since you’ve heard everything, it’s too late even if you want to kick me out… No matter what you think, this is what I wanted to say. Now, may I live together with Su Mu?”
Su Ya nodded blankly.
After all, she couldn’t find any reason to refuse.
She sighed deeply in her heart, ‘Oh well, Little Mu has her own happiness. Besides, the landlady isn’t a bad person.’
“It’s fine, landlady… I mean, Miss Tang Nai. I can see that Su Mu is very close with you. As long as you can take good care of her, that’s enough.”
‘We’re not close!’
Su Mu opened her mouth slightly, wanting to explain, but even if she tried, the situation would only get more muddled.
She could only watch helplessly as Tang Nai took her hand and gave her a sly look.
“Then, darling, let’s go tidy up the bedroom.”
Su Mu was pulled into the bedroom in a daze.
Looking at the comfortable little bed, she couldn’t keep her thoughts pure at this moment.
After all, just a few days ago she had been fooling around here with Ye Wanqing.
But Ye Wanqing was still a newbie.
Tang Nai would probably make her cry for real.
Su Mu lay straight down on the bed and gave Tang Nai a look of resigned determination.
‘No matter what you do, I’m not going to say anything!’
“Tsk, look at how pathetic you are.” Tang Nai snorted lightly and flicked her forehead gently with a finger.
“Have we been chatting too long and forgotten the main task?”
“Main task, main task…” Su Mu’s eyes were blank.
Then she suddenly sat up straight.
“Come on, I’ll guide you through absorbing it step by step. Consider it after-sales service… If you want to interpret it as an intimate act, I don’t mind either.”
While Su Mu was still hesitating, Tang Nai had already placed her hands over Su Mu’s.
“Hand-in-hand means…?”
Their fingers interlocked, and then she gently pulled her up so they sat facing each other.
At this extremely close distance, Su Mu felt as if she could sense the faint pulse in Tang Nai’s palm and hear her heartbeat.
Her cheeks, which had just calmed down, turned red again, revealing her inner shyness.
She couldn’t look directly into the gray-haired girl’s eyes and tried hard to shift her attention away from their hands, but her palms only grew hotter.
“You’re blushing. Looks like your development is pretty good…”
Su Mu buried her head between her breasts and weakly protested: “C-can’t you joke a little less?”
“Of course I can. Then I’ll be a bit more serious… Ahem, you’re so nervous, Su Mu. Your face is redder than normal. Are you feeling unwell?”
Hearing Tang Nai speak with a straight face and a serious tone, yet with eyes full of rich amusement, Su Mu bit her lower lip hard to suppress the embarrassing reactions in her body.
‘Damn it. I should have known better than to let her speak.’
“Alright, relax, good girl. Leave your body to me. Next, imagine you’re in an extremely comfortable bubble, floating along with it. Don’t think about anything. And every time I call you ‘good girl,’ you’ll sink down with the bubble and fall into a sweet dream…”
Tang Nai’s voice suddenly became gentle, as if she were carefully guiding her.
The originally tense Su Mu gradually felt dazed, unconsciously relaxing her arms and no longer gripping Tang Nai’s hand so tightly.
Her pair of azure eyes also grew hazy.
The gray-haired girl’s clear voice seemed to carry a certain magic, making her irresistibly sink into drowsiness.
Her eyelids grew heavier and heavier, yet her consciousness felt incredibly light, as if she really was floating along with that so-called bubble.
“Good girl, good girl… Hehe, I’ve never seen someone so easy to hypnotize.”
Tang Nai released her hand, gently pinched Su Mu’s chin, and looked at her peaceful sleeping face.
She couldn’t help but break into a smile.
Then, she took out a familiar old companion: the camcorder.
After turning on the recording function, she placed it aside and licked her slightly dry red lips.
‘After we’re done, let’s do something fun.’